


The Shadows Of The Mess You Made

by the_drift



Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Fragile Loki, Loki really loves Thor though, Loki/thor as seen through heimdall's eyes, M/M, Protective Loki (Marvel), Thor was once young and inexperienced, heimdall also loves thor, like for real, sorta voyeuristic on occasion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-22 11:41:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30038148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_drift/pseuds/the_drift
Summary: (Reposted and re-edited fic)Before nameless maidens and princes, before Loki looked into Thor's eyes and saw oceans of adoration, Heimdall had been there first. First in his mind, enriching it with knowledge, first to draw blood from him while sparring, first to hold, first to kiss, first to fill Thor’s body with his own.Heimdall sees Thor and he sees Loki. He sees them apart and he sees them together, tangled, a mass of sweat and moans and burning touches and he pretends he does not watch it all, from the corners of his vision.Set Post-Ragnarok. I ignored Loki’s theft from the Asgardian vaults, Thanos never happens, the Asgardians are simply looking for a home.Past relationship with Heimdall, Thor/Loki in the present.Loki/Thor is seen through Heimdall's eyes.
Relationships: Heimdall/Thor (Marvel), Loki/Thor (Marvel), Thor/Loki
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title was inspired by a lyric from the song “Mykonos” by Fleet Foxes.

  
Heimdall watched the Supernovae explode in the distance, far away, too far away for anyone else to see except for himself. He had seen hundreds of them throughout his life, so many that it felt like routine, but this time, this time he was not standing on the edge of the Bifrost, watching the comings and goings of an ever changing and yet never transformed cosmos.  
This time he was standing on the observation deck of the ship he and his people now called home. This time he was not wearing an armor and was not holding a weapon. This time, he felt a tinge of vulnerability he had not felt in a very long time, perhaps since he was a child, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that the feeling was somewhat alien to him, but it came from a time that was like a half remembered dream, pulling at the edges of his consciousness.  
All he could do was try to keep himself busy enough not to acknowledge it.  
But it was very late at night in Asgardian time and almost everyone was sleeping. He had tried to as well, but failed. Not because he was not tired, not because he did not want, for once, to shamefully turn his head away from the troubles of his people and just command himself into the quiet oblivion of sleep; he did not manage to because, behind his closed eyelids, a ragged breath huffed over an exposed neck and a tangle of black hair cascaded over a sun-kissed shoulder.  
  
Thor had been thinking of him, and so strongly was his impression that it had carried itself to Heimdall’s eyes, startling him from what could have been a dreamless slumber.  
It was not the first time it happened, and he could have looked away as he had looked away from the fates of trillions of souls, but sometimes he was unable to. Especially because Thor was thinking of him in that moment, even if only just for a second, with enough intensity to show himself to him without even calling Heimdall or Heimdall searching for him. It told him that Thor still had a connection to their shared past, that somewhere beneath his layer of forgetfulness, he had not, truly, forgotten it all.  
And that kept Heimdall still in Thor’s wake, hidden behind Thor’s honey-colored eyelashes, with Thor completely, blissfully unaware that sometimes what he sees, Heimdall _also sees_.  
  
And Heimdall sees. Sees it all, and he sees it heart-wrenchingly close.  
  
He sees it as it begins: Loki’s form taking shape through the darkness before Thor even realizes he is there. He hears Loki's voice crystal clear: _I am here_. He sees the embrace that follows and knows what’s coming with it.  
Like a tidal wave, Thor puts his arms around Loki and Heimdall can almost feel that warmth in the lack of space between them. He sees how Thor’s hand gets lost between Loki’s hair and how Loki himself touches the air where Thor’s locks should have been, before he settles his fingers on the back of his head, running his marble white fingers, fingernails shimmering like diamonds, through the short hair. It's familiar in the way familiarity feels when two people have not touched, or been close in a very long time.

How their bodies shift to fit together in grooves and canyons of bone and flesh that have grown taller and stronger than they used to be last time those bodies had met. But those bodies recognize each other still.   
Heimdall has never seen such tenderness between two people standing completely still, breathing in just the breaths between them. Or, perhaps, he just thinks he’s never seen anything like it because he’s never seen Thor so still and Loki so quiet. So quiet his mind is not even thinking, those cogs in his thoughts that never stop, finally stalled to a fragile halt.  
  
Heimdall has seen this coming, in a way. The signs have always been there but he never thought that particular bridge would be crossed. Sitting in a dark corner of the ship, he witnessed their embrace jealously, tragically, beautifully - without being able to look away.  
Behind Thor and Loki, the bridge Heimdall did not think would be crossed had started to crash and burn in the colossus of their shadows and Heimdall knew from that moment that neither of them would turn back from it, unless Loki would choose to step back and, in the wake of the startling realization that Thor holds him just as dear as Loki holds Thor, he would disappear, as he often does when he has to deal with the truth, with consequences, or kindness.  
And, even if Heimdall sees them break apart from that embrace, he also sees their reluctance to let go and, for the first time, he sees a weakness in Loki’s eyes that disappears after a flutter of his  
dark eyelashes. But there was no mistaking it: a longing lingers, a fracture forms. 

  
And Loki _stays_.  
  
Damned be all the gods of yesterday and of the future, he stays, and Heimdall watches him stay, day after day as they hurl through the universe, and every day a word is spoken that had never been spoken before between Loki and Thor and Heimdall hears every one of them, and every day a small touch brings them closer than ever before. The tone changes and when it's just the two of them, Loki speaks softly. He comforts and offers counsel, the gestures and manner of speaking of their beloves mother shining through him like never before.   
Thor leans into Loki and Loki doesn't falter. He holds him. A brush of fingers when they hand each other an item. A hand that lingers on black waves of hair, a hand, strong and scarred, that rests there for a little too long.  
The glass is filling, drop by drop.  
  
Heimdall can see them filling each other's emptiness, and cannot do anything to stop it. As Heimdall continues to watch the supernovae disperse into space, dissipating its very essence into the void without any other witness but himself, he also remembers when he felt his insides explode like that.  
It was night time, by Asgard time, and they were passing near a cluster of long dead worlds, destroyed by a long line of interplanetary wars that had left nothing in their wake but luminous traces of gas that shined in bright ribbons, like an aurora. It masked the horrific history before them with only a thinly veiled blanket of colors.  
  
It was during that night that Heimdall saw a pair of lips, wet with expectancy, going up towards one another, a movement that was almost shy in nature, almost defensive but so raw and honest not even Thor himself could move away.  
And Heimdall saw Thor not even wanting to move away from it, as he met Loki’s lips in a dark corner of a corridor, with the destruction of worlds long gone shimmering behind them beyond the reinforced glass; Heimdall felt a part of him break and shatter and he silently hurled his emotions out into the space, among all the other ruins.  
Loki’s hands were shaking in that moment, Thor could not see that, but Heimdall did. And he saw how Loki put his hands on Thor’s arms, squeezing tight so as to stop them from giving him away.  
And Heimdall hated it because it showed him for the very first time how Loki looked when his soul was laid bare on the altar of another.  
He saw Loki shiver, he saw him fragile almost and, dare he say, even frightened.   
  
He saw Loki come undone in Thor’s arms, days later, hair disheveled, hair that had grown way past his shoulders already, falling like rivers of night over both of them as Thor laid on the bed and pulled Loki over him with a gentleness Heimdall did not remember him possessing.   
Their bodies shouldn't have fit together like they did, pale, white marble over bronze, but they did, and it shattered him. 

  
It took all of Heimdall’s strength to look away from that moment.  
He’d seen Thor with his many conquests, many times before. Seen him lose his senses for a moment for a Jane, then take that back when the flame died down, seen him go mad for a curly haired young prince he met on a distant planet and saw their awkward good bye when they both realized their passions didn’t extend outside the bed. Seen so many fires start in Thor’s heart like a spark thrown into dry hay, and seen them extinguish just as fast.  
But Thor had never held on to someone as violently as he had held onto Loki. Stabbed and hit, destroyed and rebuilt again by the brother that was not his brother, Loki did not even seem to realize the hold he had on Thor, no matter how smart he was. It was almost a mercy he had not, Heimdall thought, because way back before, when both him and Thor were young and reckless, he would have gotten his hooks into Thor so deep he would have made anything out of him. He would have destroyed both of them in the process, before Thor would have gotten any wiser.  
  
But now, at the point they both were at, the two of them were terribly vulnerable and so incredibly alone. Having reached that summit, Thor would never let him go. Loki would never let him leave. Loki would never even let him even glance in the direction of anyone else.  
Heimdall saw Loki’s eyes, wandering across Thor’s body as he slept and he witnessed Loki’s most gentle of touches, the tips of his fingers crossing Thor’s face in quiet rapture and he knew that if ever a Jane or a foreign prince would come again, any Jane, any prince, he would rip them apart and Thor would not say a thing to stop him.  
Secret as it was, Loki would not allow anything to threaten what they had, and he would bare his teeth at anyone who would.  
The bridge neither of them should have ever crossed had been crossed, and the disaster left behind their crossing would burn everything around them. And Heimdall hated Loki the most for it, though he knew he shouldn't have, he knew he was wiser than that.   
Thor, he could forgive, as he always had his trespasses of any kind, but not Loki because Loki had destroyed any glimmer of hope Heimdall could have had left, somewhere in the chambers of his heart, where he never visited.  
  
 _“Heimdall, what about that star?”_ A voice, not quite as deep as it was now, resonated through Heimdall’s memories. He saw long hair, tied back in many plaits, falling over teenage shoulders as he looked up at an ever increasing red dot in the night sky.  
 _“Sogum. It comes close to us every 300 years. It’s a barren wasteland of a planet, but beautiful from afar.” Heimdall had answered, standing by the boy’s side, two heads taller than him._  
 _He looked away from the night sky, to look down at Thor, a woolen cape around his shoulders, eyes fixed on the red planet. His hand touched Thor's hair as if often did, because he found it hard_ _not to, not when they were alone and the comforting darkness of the night was sheltering them._  
 _Thor turned around to face him when he felt the touch, and Heimdall's hand ended up touching his face. He held it gently, like it was something that could be easily broken. Thor searched his face_ _for a moment, before making a decision and he reached upwards, the heat of his body inching closer to Heimdall. His lips were in flames, his body was -_  
  
Heimdall rubbed the bridge of his nose, chasing away the memories. He turned away from the Supernovae, both physically as well as with his inner eyes and walked away, hands behind his back, eyes downcast. He only heard Thor step inside the observation deck after it was too late to turn and go out through the opposite corridor.  
“Somehow I expected you to be awake too.” Thor said, his voice an octave lower and much softer. He _smelled_ like Loki, Heimdall could feel that magic he didn’t understand radiate all around him. He wondered if Loki always left something to trail along with Thor after their lovemaking was done or if it was just something that emanated from him and clung on to Thor for whatever reason. Some Jotun magic only Heimdall could feel.  
“I was watching a Supernovae explode.”  
“Must be wonderful.” Thor replied, almost absentmindedly, looking out beyond the glass, unable to see even a glimmer of what Heimdall could.  
“Why does your sleep escape you? Do you have a need to talk?” Heimdall asked, turning around himself as Thor walked past, watching the darkness. There was a galaxy somewhere in the distance, but it was nothing but a shimmer, Thor couldn’t see it.  
“My mind races. I try to sleep but it evades me. I just walked the ship for a while.”  
Heimdall sat down on the nearest couch. Thor wanted a presence with him, and had Heimdall learned to listen well, so he bade his time, as sometimes his now-King found it difficult to speak about what was on his mind.  
But Thor did not grace him with the sound of his voice. He instead sat down on the edge of the window and watched the cosmos in silence, his thoughts far away. So Heimdall stayed - he’s been here before, through Thor’s silences, and Thor never asked him to leave.  
  
He learned, in time, that Thor likes the companionship even when he does not want to talk. Thor would never thrive in solitude, not like Loki does. Companionship is Thor’s lifeline. Warriors, Avengers, family, friends, lovers, whatever he can get. So Heimdall leans back and pretends to watch worlds away from them but in reality he is watching Thor, Thor as he becomes a memory of a younger self with the Rainbow Bridge’s colors dancing across his cheeks.

  
**Hundreds of Years Ago**

  
There he was, young Thor Odinson. Heimdall was looking down at him from his spot in the Bifrost, with an amused look on his face. Thor had come from his first hunt with his father. He had apparently ran directly from his horse to Heimdall, clothes dirty, mud on his shoes and his face. His hair was greasy and matted with dirt and his eyes were as clear as a morning’s sky.  
He held up a white fox by the neck, presenting it to Heimdall. They were notoriously hard to catch, especially in the territory where they lived, high in the mountains, in areas filled with jagged rocks  
and perilous heights. Heimdall smiled a bit wider, walking down from his usual spot.  
“You’ve done well!” he exclaimed with a laugh, running his fingers through the fox’s fur.  
“Your advice was useful.” Thor grinned, ear to ear.  
Heimdall leaned in on his sword, cocking an amused brow: “Which one of them?”  
“You know which one – the bait that leaves a trace. I found an entire nest. Mother will be so pleased, she kept saying she would want a coat of white fox furs for the winter.”  
“So you’ve caught enough to make an entire coat for your mother, then?”  
“I could even give you some and still be left with enough.”  
“Would be a waste on me, but the thought is much appreciated.” Heimdall laughed.  
“Tomorrow we will train, yes?”  
“Now that you are back from the hunt, of course.”  
Thor offered him just a grin in return, threw the fox over his shoulder and ran out across the Rainbow Bridge.

* * *

  
There he was again, years later, as if it had been a blink of an eye since he walked across the Rainbow Bridge with his fox. He was on his knees in front of Heimdall, arm bleeding, armor pierced. Dumbfounded but grateful no one else was around to watch him lose. Which he had done, repeatedly, in front of Heimdall. Fresh out of a riot on a distant planet in the Nine Realms, Thor thought he was invincible. Heimdall showed him he was not.  
After he had raged and lunged at him, wasting all his strength in the process, Thor was spent, huffing and puffing in the dirt, leaning in on his sword. It would be a while before he would get Mjolnir, and Heimdall knew back then that whatever weapon Odin would gift his son, it would render him weak in a way, because he would lean on it like a crutch and without it, he would be lost.  
But there are certain things you don’t tell a King, and one is how he should raise his children. Until then, Heimdall wanted Thor to learn to fight without any help.  
  
“ **Fine**. _I yield_.” Thor had said, pulling himself up. He never would have allowed those words to leave his mouth if anyone had been watching them, but no one was. Except for Loki, for a short time, before he had disappeared beyond the balcony columns. But Heimdall hadn’t said a thing. Loki was always following Thor around, even when Thor was not aware of his presence.  
Thor had thrown his sword away and hid his defeat with a smile, as he ran a bloodied hand through his hair. His hair back then had been a storm of golden sun rays that his mother barely held in place with plaits and when she didn’t, Loki took the task upon himself.  
  
Heimdall could always tell who had taken mercy on Thor’s hair: his mother used tame plaits, two or three, just to keep his hair out of his face. Loki made up intricate designs that took a toll on his brother’s patience more often than not. His plaits intertwined in patterns that were both functional as well as decorative. He made Thor look like the future king he would be. It was such an obvious difference even then, in how his own mother saw Thor and how Loki did.  
  
“Do you want to continue?” Heimdall had asked. Thor swayed between answers. His skin was covered in patches of dirt, with beads of sweat rolling off his shoulders, his temples too and they gathered at his chin and fell down in short, beady bursts. Himdall just about reached to wipe them away with the back of his hand.  
“No, it’s enough for today. I’ll be a match for you tomorrow. “  
He wouldn’t be a match for him the next day either, but Heimdall had nodded in response. After Thor left, heading for a healer and a bath, Heimdall had placed the swords away but found himself looking at the blood stained dirt beneath his feet. It had been just a fraction of a second, Thor had overlooked Heimdall’s dagger, did not keep his eye on it, thinking he would best him with brute force, and Heimdall had pushed through the weak spot in his armor, close enough to cut, but not close enough to fatally injure.  
 _First blood_ , he'd thought. He had been the first to draw blood from the son of Odin and Thor would always remember it, as most men do their very first misgivings. They forget others, but not the first cut. Heimdall preferred to be remembered for something, rather than for nothing at all. He'd put his boot over the blood, spreading dirt over it until it was no more.  
  


* * *

The memory of blood resolved to bring Heimdall back to the present.

The Supernovae was still dispersing and Thor was still sitting on the windowsill, gazing at the universe with his one eye. Heimdall had seen Loki take off the patch, try to treat the wound, make it hurt less. Seen him slap Thor’s hand away from it when it was itching, bring his lips to it to soothe the pain. Seen him -  
“What is on your mind, Heimdall?”  
He looked at Thor, as if to make sure he had heard his voice then and there and that it had not been a whisper that had escaped from his memories. It was hard to tell anymore, ever since he witnessed Thor and Loki in their naked embrace. As if the floodgates had opened. Memory and present intertwined more often that not those days.  
“Many things. Why do you ask?”  
“You seem distracted lately. I worry. I worry your mind will get lost and tangled in things that don’t matter and that I will lose you too.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I see them, across the ship, our people. I see them afraid and praying. I see how some of them hang by a thread, their minds already set on the scenario of the destruction of our kin. I see them lose hope and dwell on the what if’s. I can barely hold on not to think so myself, but I force it out of me because they need me. I worry your thoughts drift in the same direction, and if they do, tell me Heimdall: how can I help?”  
Heimdall let out a soft laugh, his shoulders slouching just a bit, muscles relaxing in the soft couch. He looked at Thor with eyes that suddenly seemed less tired but also milder and perhaps, even less attentive at the many things they were seeing. He got up and walked over to Thor at an even pace and sat down on the windowsill, close enough for their knees to touch. His hand rested on Thor’s arm, and he squeezed it for a moment, before letting go. A brotherly gesture, a reassuring touch between two warriors. But he had felt a hunger to touch him, just a bit, just for a moment.  
If a shadow of memory crossed Thor’s face at his touch, Heimdall did not see it.  
  
“Forgive me. It seemed like just moments ago you were a young boy who was just learning how to hold a sword. And now you’re here, ready to bear even the weight of my mind, should I need it. How do I forget you are King now?” A laugh again, then he looked him in the eye: “No need to worry about me. If I may have seemed distracted...” he shrugged in Thor’s direction as if his distractions had been just an afterthought, a speck of dust on his shoulders “It was merely memories from long ago. Nothing of importance. A homesickness, perhaps. But I will not be haunted as you fear. Trust me.”  
Thor opened his mouth to say something, but chose not to, and nodded instead, placing his hand on top of Heimdall’s.  
“We will get through this.” He said.  
“We will.” Heimdall reassured him.


	2. Chapter 2

Loki avoids Heimdall as much as it is socially acceptable. Heimdall doesn’t mind, but makes sure to always stand taller. If Loki sits down, Heimdall will be standing up. If they are next to each other, the slouch Heimdall started to show as of lately, a soft lowering of his shoulders, will disappear. He does not want Loki to forget he is feeble, lithe, that he looks weak compared to him.  
And it’s _stupid._  
It’s so god damn stupid he might as well have been a child because only children behave like this. But he sees them again, _oh how he sees them_ and oh, how much he chastises himself for continuing to watch.  
  
It is some days later after he and Thor spent the night watching the universe pass by in the observation deck that Thor paces the ship like a giant having a tantrum. Heimdall finds out Loki is nowhere to be found and Thor needs a word with him. Heimdall assures him he must surely be around, hiding in some dark space, filled with shadows. Thor gives him just an annoyed look, but doesn’t say anything in return for the comment. He can’t be seen taking Loki’s side too much, at least not yet. Many wounds still have to heal.  
Not his own, Heimdall knows, Thor’s wounds would always be open and festering because Loki would always keep them open, so no, not his, but their people’s. People who are still weary of Loki’s presence, despite of his role in their frail salvation.  
  
Thor searches the ship for Loki until it’s Asgard night time again. Heimdall sees him in the empty cargo bay, going in circles after having gone over the ship three times. Hands in his hair, his face contorted with anger and frustration, he yells Loki’s name a few times, his voice becoming hoarse almost too fast because of the strain.  
Heimdall looks away. If Loki would be truly gone, it would be a mercy.  
But he lurks in the shadows and appears hours later in Thor’s cabin and Heimdall peers inside, catching them mid-conversation. Thor has not changed his clothes and he itches under his eye patch. He tries not to scratch it but the tiredness and the frustration of the day is not letting him be. Loki’s a few feet away, looking nice and put together, just opening his mouth to say:  
“Don’t look at me like that!” Loki says. They seem to have been at it for a while already so Loki finally seems to have fought his full and walks away from Thor. He almost leaves the room, but stops just near the door.  
Loki treads more carefully than ever before. Ever since Thor opened his mouth to meet his own, Loki has been walking as if on thin ice sometimes, as if careful not to disturb the giants sleeping beneath, almost fearful almost. Of what? Of losing Thor, of course. Even Loki knows now that the stakes are higher, and he knows damn well that once Thor has his mind set on something, on someone, he will move mountains for them. So Loki falters now.   
Worst of all - he thinks twice.  
“I thought you went away.” Thor says, almost with a sigh. The fight is almost out of him, but not just yet. Heimdall knows, he’d seen Thor explode, flare out, die out and then rekindle the flame of an argument for hours at a time.  
“Where, Thor? Flung myself into space, riding the next empty asteroid out of here?”  
“You were nowhere to be found! I searched the ship for hours! I never know what you’re gonna do!” Thor says, defensively.  
“You have no trust in me.”  
“I am sorry if this comes as news to you, but you’ve never given me much reason to otherwise have any trust!”  
“But this time-”  
“I **still** carry your stab wounds, Loki! I sleep waiting to wake up to another one every night!” He cuts him mid sentence and Loki’s heart stumbles, just for a breath, before his back straightens and his lips form that specific thin line they do when Loki starts to close his shell around him.  
Thor knows he fucked up. Heimdall knows Thor fucked up, and he almost gets a glimmer of hope that Loki will be daft enough to call their shared madness quits. Maybe get angry enough to hurl the piece of junk ship they are on straight into the next planet and destroy Thor’s faith in him some more.  
  
But no, _it gets worse_ : behind his back, Loki’s fingers clench and unclench for a few agonizing moments and the Jotun bastard yields. He takes a few measured steps towards a Thor that is both spent in his anger and sorrow and, within a second, Loki becomes the other Loki, the one Heimdall’s only seen around Thor and only after everyone else was gone from sight.  
It’s a shift that happens almost imperceptibly, with the skill of the most versed actor in the Nine Realms; a slouch in his shoulders, a softness in his step, a strand of black hair that falls out of place and suddenly his hair is fuller, part of it held up by a handmade wooden pin. Small things begin to appear: a wrinkle in the corner of his eye that was not there before, a tiredness resting under them and it takes Heimdall a second to realize Loki had simply let go of the fragile glamour spell he’d had on.  
Thor turns away from him, pinching the bridge of his nose but Loki follows.  
A hand on his shoulder. Loki’s forehead between his shoulder blades. A soft squeeze of those fingers and Heimdall can see Thor's walls crumble as if they were made of sand, washed down by the gentle waves of Loki’s fingertips.  
 _What a waste,_ Heimdall thinks.  
What a waste that Thor turns around and Loki looks up at him with sad eyes. What a waste, that Thor runs his hand through Loki’s hair, pulls the wooden pin stuck on the back of his head away and allows the dark locks to fall all the way down, in between his shoulder blades. He touches the dark hair like he’s touching black gold.  
  
“If you want to be invisible and left alone, just tell me and I won’t bother you.” Thor says. His tone is low, intimate.  
“I thought you’d be too busy to need me. And I had just too much of people. I just wanted to be alone for a while. It doesn’t mean I was thinking of or attempting to leave.” Loki says, hand still on Thor’s shoulder. His tongue is looking for the right words. He thinks now, he thinks twice before talking, even Thor can see it, and he waits for it, more patiently than Heimdall’s ever seen Thor wait for anything. “I’m sor- I'm sorry.” Loki says. It comes out strangled and he doesn’t make eye contact but it doesn’t even matter because Thor’s forgiven him already, like he always stupidly does.  
"It’s alright.” He says and puts his forehead on Loki’s for a second, then kisses his cheek with a chaste brush of his lips.  
  
“It’s not alright.” Heimdall utters under his breath on the other side of the ship, and looks away from the two of them, focusing on the sight before him instead – rows of bunks and sleeping Asgardians. They all had tried to make a home with what they’d found on the ship, and it could have almost taken the semblance of a village, if not for all the metal. They slept mostly soundly, unaware that their King was kissing a serpent at that very moment.  
Eventually, Heimdall turned away from watching his people and walked towards the nearest bathroom, where he’d left the razors he’d found earlier. He set his scarf away and started to cut away at his hair in silence. He kept postponing the moment to cut it away because a part of him felt like, even if he looked like before, he wouldn’t be the same man he was, and he was not sure what he would do with that weight pressing over him.  
As his dark hair gathered in the sink, he remembered tying back Thor’s hair one day of that fateful summer, a while after he had first drawn blood from him with his dagger during their training session. Yes, he could still smell it, the scent of the meadow, freshly out of a light drizzle. The earth was damp and the sun was starting to shine between the clouds.  
  
What were they even doing?  
  
Ah yes, it was the one time a year when Heimdall was allowed to be away from the Bifrost. He’d chosen to go visit his childhood village, even if no one from his near family was still living there anymore, but he wanted the trip, as it carried him through the forests and beyond the mountains.  
Places he’d missed.  
Thor had wanted to come with and he couldn’t deny him.  
Heimdall postponed the arrival, taking the long way around. Showed Thor all the places the Prince never knew existed and told him of their history. Other times, Heimdall just hummed a song under his breath and Thor listened, as they hiked through the forests and over the grassy hills. Under the stars and next to the fire, he'd told Thor about war. Not just their wars, but the many wars he’d seen, on distant planets, about the rise and fall of societies much different than their own. Other times, he told Thor just stories of the lives he saw across the Nine Realms, stories sometimes the same as their own, other times tinged with elements so otherworldly he had trouble finding the right words for them.  
Sometimes, Thor laid down, head on his arm, watching Heimdall speak over the fire and Heimdall lost his train of thought when he saw him like that, cheeks red because of the heat, hair cascading in curls over his arm and into the grass.  
Heimdall looked at himself in the mirror and closed his eyes, reclaiming that memory, pulling it closer, closer, closer, until he could smell the wood burning and see Thor’s young eyes that appeared amber in color in the fire light.  
  
“How come you are still alone, Heimdall?” Thor had asked, one of those nights, by the fire.  
“Who said I am alone?”  
“What I meant is, how come you don’t have another in your life. Or do you?”  
“I do not. Why do you ask?”  
Thor had made a show of shrugging his shoulders under the cape he had draped over himself, as if this was just a random thought. But he'd never been good at pretense and the tips of his ears turned bright red whenever he lied.   
“Father has mother. And every other Lord has someone, even the warriors.” He said “Of your age, I mean” he quickly added.  
“I suppose I never had the time for it. Or the wish. Watching trillion of lives takes up time and it also offers me companionship in a way. So I suppose I never felt the need for someone else.”  
“Do you not get lonely?”  
“Perhaps I do. I couldn’t really tell. Watching the Universe brings things into perspective. My loneliness is different.”  
“In what way?”  
Heimdall took a deep breath, trying to think of the best way to explain it to someone merely a few hundreds of years old, who also did not share even a speck of his abilities.  
“It is _indifferent_.” He said, and then nodded, mostly at himself, satisfied with the answer “An indifferent loneliness. The Universe is indifferent to the pains and the joys of our lives. It merely _is_. It is not compassionate and it does not take sides. It is loyal to its laws only. I suppose that is a loneliness in itself, and, because I spend so much time watching the Universe, I have the same type of loneliness, which is neither painful nor joyful. It _just is_.”  
  
Thor’s brows had furrowed a bit. His ability to understand such concepts was hindered by his carefree manner, but it did not mean in the slightest Thor was not intelligent. He just chose to ignore that part of himself because with intelligence also comes great pain. Thor was not built to deal with self pity or sadness and any concept that could have triggered that was quickly brushed to the side in a corner of his mind he never really visited.  
Heimdall knew that, if he would have said the same thing to Loki, Loki would have been tormented by so many questions he would have paced the entire palace and the library for days. Thor’s way about such things was one of the things why he adored him so. Yes, he adored him. His face dancing with the light of the flames, young and wild and hopeful and so incredibly beautiful, he adored him.  
He adored him from afar, admiring him like he would a distant planet, lush with life but too radioactive to approach.  
“Why don’t you find someone to change that indifferent loneliness?” Thor eventually asked and Heimdall caught a smile threatening to form across his own lips just in time. Thor’s solutions were always straightforward, radiant and hopeful. One person was enough to change the indifference of the Universe in Thor’s eyes and, in a way, that was beautiful. Beautiful and childish.  
“Maybe I will.” Heimdall offered with a shrug. He wouldn’t. The emptiness of space and the voices of the 40 trillions of souls that inhabited it was not something that could be wiped clean by another body that would say that it belongs to Heimdall.  
Belonging was transient.  
Nothing lasted forever and, slowly and in peace, everything was always falling apart even at the smallest molecular levels. But he couldn’t tell that to Thor. He would come up with an outrageous plan to try to change the unchangeable laws of the Cosmos.  
  
Thor had watched the flames for a while, deep in thought, before he got up, knees to his chin, sitting next to Heimdall. He took off a golden bracelet that had been hanging down his then thin wrist, and held it in the fire light.   
“I’m asking you all this because this was given to me last week on my birth celebrations. It’s supposed to be a snake eating its tail and all that. It came with a speech about me being king in the future and reinvention and a lot of things I wasn’t really paying attention to. I’m not ready to be King.”  
“You won’t be for a very, _very_ long time yet.” Heimdall chuckled.  
“Don’t jest. What I mean is that you have always been the same, ever since I remember, ever since my father was young and he didn’t even know my mother. You’ve seen father conquer, you’ve seen my birth. But you’ve always been there with your sword, on the Bifrost. I want to be like that too, never changing.”  
“All change. Even I am not the same person I used to be. It’s how the world works.”  
“I don’t think so. And I don’t like change. I don’t want to change.”  
“What is all this about, actually, Thor?” Heimdall’s back straightened, his shoulders too, finally grasping on the fact that Thor was playing around another issue altogether than the one he was talking about. The boy shifted uncomfortably as he put his bracelet back on.  
“I want to do something. Or say something, but I worry it will change everything. And I cannot have things changing.”  
“You are already changed by the fact that you are considering it.” Heimdall delivered the simple answer. Thor shook his head as if that would have counted for anything.  
“Can you do my hair? The plaits are coming off.” Came out of nowhere.  
“Thor, I can do that tomorrow, you’re going to sleep anyway.”  
  
Thor instead turned around with his back to Heimdall, arms around his knees, staring into the darkness of the forest. Heimdall opened his mouth to say something but gave up and started to undo Thor’s plaits. If Thor did not want to talk about something, he would refuse to in the most straightforward manner and you had to accept it, until he decided if he would ever tell you what it was all about or choose to forget all about it and never bring it up again.   
Thor’s hair had been plaited by Loki, days before. Part of it had been plaited and then arranged in a plaited bun of sorts, allowing only the shorter strands to fall on his shoulders. Heimdall cursed Loki’s deft fingers for a while as he fiddled, unsure of where to even begin. It was Asgardian tradition to have hair plaited in many designs, especially as a young person but Loki’s intricate knots were taking the whole tradition to the next level. Not even their mother tried so had or wasted so much time with Thor’s hair. Eventually, he managed to let all of Thor’s hair loose but it took him every ounce of patience he had left.  
It was wavier than usual because of the tight plaits and it hung heavy under Heimdall’s fingers. He released the final plait, the one that started at Thor’s temple and as he did so, he pulled his hair back out of his face and Thor leaned his cheek into his fingers. It had not been a mistake. The gesture was gentle and intentional. He had wanted a caress, and Heimdall was taken aback, unsure of how to respond.  
His hands fell back and Thor turned around to search for them. Heimdall’s heart skipped a beat, a moment as short as a breath, when Thor’s face turned to him, hair strands falling over his shoulder, over his forehead, a thin strand momentarily glued to his lower lip.   
In the fire light, he had suddenly taken almost another form. His eyes were hooded with a question, his lips parted with a word he didn’t want to say. Cheeks flushed with heat, hair in disarray, he was unbearably beautiful, so beautiful it hit Heimdall in the chest in such a way it almost knocked the air out of him.  
“I am your future king, am I not, Heimdall?” He asked, as Heimdall moved away from him without realizing. It was as if being too close to an open flame.  
“Yes.”  
“And if I ask you to speak the truth to me, you will?”  
“Yes.”  
“Tell me the truth Heimdall: do you look at me and wish to bed me?”  
“ _What_?”  
He had **never** touched him any differently. **Never** said a word. He had **never** changed a thing he had always done around Thor. How did he know?  
“Truth.” Thor ordered.  
“Why would you ask me such a thing?”  
  
“Is it not customary for the sons of kings and lords to bed a mentor? I know so many warriors who did. I know sons of lords who bedded generals for hundreds of years before they were wedded to their wives. I know warriors who never wed to stay with their knights, war after war. But I am not a common warrior. Tell me the truth, Heimdall.”  
“There is no truth to tell, unless you tell me why.”  
Thor’s face was burning with excitement and he was terribly agitated and nervous, Heimdall could see it clear as day. He passed his tongue over his dry lips before finding enough courage in himself to say it:  
“Because I want that too. With you. But _only_ if you also want it. And I think you do. But I am not sure and it’s driving me mad not knowing. Say no if you want, but please don’t let it change anything.”  
How easy it was to be young and think you can wish away consequences.  
But some things made sense now, to Heimdall. The constant visits, the close proximity Thor wished to fight him in every time they trained. Touches that lingered. It was all Thor trying to get a sense out of what Heimdall might have wanted, clumsy attempts so easily disrupted Heimdall didn’t even think twice about them.  
And then there he was, unexpectedly so, his hand reaching out towards Thor’s face, and Thor leaning into the touch, in a way he’d never seen him do before, with the reluctant abandon of the first lover, and Heimdall’s blood boiled, as if his entire being had suddenly been jolted awake after centuries of being dormant.  
“But if I say yes, it _**will** _change everything.” He said.  
“I can accept the yes with the change, but not the no.” Thor replied. He was trying to keep his voice even and his fiery character under control and it was not working at all, no matter how witty he thought he was.  
  
Thor could do whatever he wanted, he was the son of the King. His father didn’t need to know and Heimdall was bound by duty to accept and no one would think any less of him if he did, because Thor was of age to choose. Anyone in his stead knew it would be a high honor to _even be considered_ to begin with, even if they did not feel so inclined.  
But oh, how _inclined_ Heimdall felt!  
How he buried his fingers in that lush, golden hair and pulled his face towards him. How stiff Thor was and how inexperienced his mouth was when it touched his own. How clumsily Thor grabbed onto Heimdall’s clothes, fisting the fabric between his fingers, how clumsily he was trying to breathe in between the kissing and how he didn’t know what to do with himself so he let Heimdall do it for him and followed his lead, slowing down, slower, slower, until their mouths fit properly, until he let himself be kissed by Heimdall as he should be kissed. He felt the heat inside him rise from nothing, flames everywhere, spreading through his limbs, exploding in his chest, burning between his legs.  
When they broke apart, Thor was more flushed in the face than before, his lips swollen under the weight of the kisses and his eyes glowing with want, desire and happiness.  
“So you accept.” Was all he could muster in his attempt to still look somewhat in control of himself and the situation. His hands were slowly letting go of Heimdall’s tunic, but he caught one and held it on his chest with a smile.  
“Yes, my Prince, I accept.”  
  
The last of Heimdall’s long locks fell into the sink.  
The loss of his hair and the return to his old self made him feel, strangely, taller. But only physically. The memory of that night had come to him much stronger than he expected and he leaned in into the sink for a moment, trying to decide how to handle it, this weakness. He had been fine to live with watching Thor from afar again, it had all been very well even in the aftermath of the Asgardian exile, up until Loki touched Thor’s face in an intimate gesture and the gentle parting of his lips beckoned Thor right into their trap.  
He had been fine until he’d heard:  
 _“Tell me it’s real”_  
 _“It’s real.”_  
 _“Tell me you’re not lying. If this is a trick, I will kill you, in the name of all the Gods I know, Loki...” Thor had whispered in between the kisses “In all their names, I will kill you a thousand_ _times over.”_  
 _“You can kill me regardless, but only if you let me kiss you one more time, please.”_  
It was all fine until he heard Loki pleading for Thor’s love.  
It was all fine until he saw Thor on his knees in front of Loki, and not because Loki had made him, but because Thor loved him.


	3. Chapter 3

Why did they always meet like this? In the dead of the night or in lonely rooms? In the empty metal halls of the godforsaken ship that was their home?  
Heimdall had avoided the observation deck during Asgardian night time, noticing how it had become a favorite place for Thor to be alone with his thoughts, perhaps in hope he will find Heimdall there to talk his loneliness away. So Heimdall kept busy, so busy the soles of his boots were run down with wear from all his incursions into the belly of their ruined home.  
He'd watched the reactor breathe life in the ship from beyond the reinforced glass down on the engineering deck and visited the armory’s deepest vaults, the prisons, and stayed in the furthest, most secure solitary isolation cell. It did not even have a window, just one single weak light – it was a faint red line that ran through the middle of the walls, all around it. It had no bed, and it was all metal and sharp edges.  
It was a room not made for comfort.  
Even so, Heimdall had sat down, knees up, elbows hanging loosely over them, his forehead down. In that silence, he could only hear the hum of the reactor engine and, after focusing enough, he did  
not think of anything at all.  
  
But hours later, there he was, facing Thor again during the ship’s night time, when all lights were low and all non essential personnel appointed by Thor and Loki were long asleep.  
They were on the piloting deck, now void of anyone else, with the ship running on auto pilot. Thor was sitting in the Commander’s chair, watching the Universe pass by. He looked much less royal than usual: he was wearing just leather pants and a loose tunic, one leg draped over the arm of the seat. Heimdall couldn’t help but notice he was holding a half empty bottle. On the floor, a completely empty one was toppled over. As soon as the Asgardians had discovered the greenhouses on the ship, one of their first priorities had been to make mead. Sure, it was not the same as the one back home, but it sufficed.   
Thor looked over his shoulder and gave him a tired smile:  
“Heimdall.”  
“My Lord.”  
“I thought I was having a vision for a moment there. I have not seen you with short hair and such a mighty beard since I was a child!” Thor’s words were so slurred he was making great efforts to articulate them. It was not the first time he’d seen Thor in such a state but Heimdall supposed he deserved a break. He’d went beyond his means to appear to the Asgardians as calm, collected and in control as he could. To inspire strength and resolve onto them.  
He’d earned his drunkenness.  
“My hair was the only thing I had energy for.” Heimdall smiled, running his hand across his beard.  
He walked over to the Commander’s chair and stood next to it, watching their travel beyond the window. On its edges, he could see faint blue shimmers, blue lines, the only thing indicating they were traveling faster than the speed of light. Everything else was seemingly still and barely approaching. He strained a little and saw the nearest galaxy. It would be months before any of the Asgardians would see it with the naked eye themselves.  
“It suits you.” Thor said, putting the bottle down next to the chair and leaning his temple into his hand. His eyes were hooded and tired.  
“Thank you.”  
“Keep it.”  
“I look old. There’s gray hairs in my beard.” Heimdall laughed, but softly, almost under his breath.  
“Old is not bad. Old is wise...” he trailed off.  
Heimdall looked down at Thor like he would have at a child who said something very stupid but you forgive him because he is a child. He was knocked out cold, as expected. Not the first time Heimdall had witnessed it. He wondered where Loki was, how come he’d let Thor drink like this by himself. He searched for him, opening hundreds of eyes across the ship. He found him asleep in Thor’s room, in Thor’s bed. The bed was a mess, and so was Loki’s hair. He was naked under the blankets and was sleeping soundly.  
Heimdall left him there and returned to Thor.  
It was pointless to wake him up, besides, it would make for a good laugh to see him wake up whenever he’d wake up, all stiff and bent out of shape thanks to the strange position he'd fallen asleep in. Heimdall watched the blue lines forming at the edges of the ship but his eyes kept coming back to Thor. His strong arms blooming from under the sleeves of his tunic, hands scarred and knuckles darkened from all the punching and the healing, punching and healing, punching and healing. The corners of his eyes, finely traced with lines, the back of his head, now shaved to a buzz, the skin on the back of his neck no longer smooth but crossed with the burdens they all knew of, some of which they didn’t.  
  
The young boy he had loved.  
 _Still_ loved.  
The young boy he still loved was a man, a King, and he had fought other Gods, giants, his brother and, sometimes, himself.  
  
Back then, after they shared that first kiss in front of the fire, Heimdall took Thor to his the village he had been born in and they were welcomed with mead, with honey and seed bread and so praised  
was the son of Odin, they celebrated well into the night. Thor was given an entire house to spend the night in while Heimdall was welcome into his old childhood home, even if his family was no longer alive to welcome him in it.  
“He will stay with me.” Thor had told the lady of the house.  
“Heimdall always stays in his house when he comes to visit, my Lord.”  
“I understand. But as I came with him, he will stay with me. I hope you understand." He continued, his words heavy with meaning.  
“Ah...Yes. As you wish my Lord.” She said, and scurried away in the night to Heimdall, who was by the dying fire outside, with some of the old men. When she came to them and said what Thor asked, they all nodded in his direction, in quiet understanding.  
“So he did decide to choose someone and he chose you.” One of the men said, offering Heimdall a large grin “This is how you gain traction in court, sometimes.” The statement was tinged with humor, not malice.  
“I am the Guardian of the Bifrost, do you really think there’s any more traction I could hope to gain?” Heimdall said, feigning arrogance, and they both laughed.  
“You can teach him many things, Heimdall, you have had and witnessed experiences few of us will ever be able to. It’s a great honor to be his mentor and share his bed.”  
“It is.”  
“You don’t seem burdened by it.”  
Heimdall got up, wiping off the crumbs of sweetbread from his tunic.  
“It would be a transgression to be burdened by such strength and beauty,” he said “sleep well, my friends.”  
  
When he walked inside the house, Thor was by the dying fire, adding a log onto it. The lady of the house had left food from their feast earlier that day on the table: bread, cheese, butter, honey and fruits. The mead was also offered in generous amounts, as she'd found it fitting to place a good deal many bottles on the table. Thor seemed to have finished two by himself.  
“I was told you required my presence in the house.”  
“I require your presence preferably throughout the entire night.” Thor said, as if he was in control, as if he had any idea what he was doing. Heimdall let him have it, for now. He’d made no other attempts to touch him or kiss him on the remaining day’s walk towards the village, but Heimdall saw him grow impatient. He was never good at not getting what he wanted, as soon as possible. He had to teach Thor that instant gratification was not something you just got out of sharing your body with another’s.  
But those things came with time. With many nights.  
Heimdall sat down on the furs in front of the fire. Thor had undone all his braids earlier that evening and his hair had had the time to settle into the looser waves that resembled his mother’s. They fell heavy over his shoulder and he had a habit of running his hands through them when he was nervous. He did it less in that moment, probably thanks to all the mead he had drunk beforehand, which provided him with false bravery.  
Heimdall pushed back the heavy golden curtain from the side of his face and over his shoulders.  
“I always liked your hair.”  
“I noticed. That’s why I let it loose. But don’t expect me to do it too often, it gets in my eyes.”  
Heimdall laughed.  
“You don’t have to do anything for my pleasure, Thor. You are my prince. You should be asking me to change things about myself.”  
“I don’t want to change anything about you and I also don’t want to be the only one who gains any pleasure from...this... How can I feel good if you feel miserable?”  
“I don’t, don’t fret and worry. Thank you for letting your hair down,” Heimdall said, still caressing it “it does give me great pleasure.”  
  
He leaned in, gathering a fistful of it in his hand and he kissed it. He went from it to Thor’s face and he kissed it as well, his cheek, his temple, his mouth. His soft lips that tasted still like honey and almost trembled under his caresses. Thor responded, slowly, leaning into Heimdall’s mouth and Heimdall fit his hand on the back of his neck, fitting in that curve of his head perfectly, as if his hand had been designed to fit there, sooner or later.  
Thor inched closer and closer to him, to the point where he pushed him down. They fell into the soft furs and he kissed Heimdall’s jaw, and his neck, his chest, pulling at his tunic, taking it off him. Legs on each side of Heimdall, he felt Thor’s thighs strong, as his muscles clenched his hips. Thor stopped for a few moments after he took of Heimdall’s tunic, and took in his half naked form; he watched his body so intently, Heimdall thought he was almost reading something in the way the flames danced across his skin. But he let the boy have his fill, until Thor bent at the waist and traced his chest with his lips all the way down to his navel, and under it, his fingers slowly opening up his pants, one of his hands rubbing over the ever increasing erection that was growing inside them.  
It was Heimdall who stopped him, pulling Thor all the way up. When they were face to face, Thor’s hair covered both their faces like a curtain of gold. The firelight gave his hair amber highlights and Heimdall drank them in, committing them to memory.  
“How about you let me do it first?”  
“I can do it just fine. I want to.”  
“Just let me.” He said, as if he were explaining a difficult lesson to a difficult student. He wrapped his arms around Thor and turned him around, placing him gently on the furs and pulled off his tunic too. He got rid of his pants almost effortlessly, while his mouth was busy with Thor’s. He traced a hundred kisses across his body, across his shoulders; wider than he remembered them being. He kissed his chest, his stomach, which had lost all its softness. Thor was growing all into strong edges and sharp corners but in a very different way than his brother was, and Heimdall wanted to devour all of it.  
  
He was already too hard for such a short moment of passion, but it was understandable for someone so inexperienced. Heimdall delayed it, kissed the corners of his hips instead, his beard barely brushing past the throbbing cock and Thor did a poor job at stifling a moan. When his tongue touched the tip though, Thor stopped watching and just fell back onto the furs, both his hands on Heimdall’s broad shoulders, his fingers squeezing with each rush of pleasure.  
Heimdall gave him bits and pieces, licking him from bottom to top, then licking his way around, cupping his balls and giving them wet kisses, before his lips went back to his cock. He didn’t take it all in until he saw it ooze out, the tip all red and overflowing with desire. When he did, Thor let out the first loud sound that night, releasing the height of his pleasures for the flames to listen. He took him in his mouth slow, his tongue working over the tip in precise motions while his hand was slowly inching towards his buttocks, going in between them, caressing the spot between them with fingers laced with spit and precome.  
Thor shuddered, his fingers digging into Heimdall’s shoulders, and he felt his thighs clench and then release their muscles. His breath was coming out in short bursts and there was a sense of pride  
Heimdall could not hide from himself in him being the reason for Thor’s pleasure. He inserted one finger inside him and Thor’s body did a short jerking motion.  
“It’s alright. I’m only getting you ready for next time.”  
Thor met those words with a hoarse, dry laugh. He was staring at the ceiling.  
“Is it going to be tonight?”  
“Probably not.”  
“What a pity.”  
Heimdall didn’t answer, his mouth took him back and he sucked him in all the way in, feeling his precome on the back of his neck every time he drew back. His mouth was full of Thor and he tasted all of it, the bitter-sweetness coming out of him, drip by drip. He licked it off the tip like it was honey, then took it all back inside his mouth. He'd spent most of the day before thinking about all the ways he would love him. How he would build him up and tear him apart with cries for more.  
He himself had to be patient, yes, but he would give Thor so much more before getting any of it himself.  
His finger inside Thor was wriggling in more and more, inch by inch and he could tell judging by his moans that it was getting better rather than worse. Thor had covered his eyes with his arm, while his fingers were fisting his own hair. Of his face, Heimdall could only see his lips, swelled with lust. He wanted to go up there and kiss him in that very instant, fill his mouth with his own taste. But he resisted the temptation and kept going and going until Thor reached his orgasm with a cry that broke the sound of the crackling logs in two, releasing all of himself into Heimdall’s mouth. He swallowed it all as it came, the motions of his mouth only making Thor cry out in both pleasure as well as surrender, his hands pushing at Heimdall’s shoulders to move away.  
  
Heimdall released him, both with his mouth and his finger, and stood on his knees between Thor’s legs, which were falling slowly to his sides, with a slight tremor.  
Thor’s face was flushed, his hair in disarray, his eyes still closed, mouth half open in an expression of consumed lust. He looked borderline depraved and Heimdall was completely entranced by it. He leaned over him, his thumb crossing the boy’s… _the man’s_ lips, and it was Thor who put his arms around his neck and pulled him in for the kiss.  
The kiss of himself all over Heimdall’s mouth, Heimdall knew that had been Thor’s intention, to taste all those things mixed together, because of how forceful he was, how eager. His hand slipped between the two of them and went between Heimdall’s legs. He had to fight against the will to let him continue.  
“Not tonight.” Heimdall muttered, lips to lips.  
“Why?”  
“You’re tired. I’ve made you even more tired. There is time. There will be many nights.”  
“Will there?”  
“As many as you wish.”  
“Will there be days too?”  
“Entire days. Afternoons. Mornings. All the times in between.”  
Thor smiled in their kiss, caressing Heimdall’s beard instead of his crotch and he took all his lust from Heimdall, all the caresses and kisses selfishly, as any prince would and Heimdall felt something akin to a blessing to be able to give them to him.  
They didn’t move. Thor curled up to Heimdall as he pulled some of the furs over them. He swung his leg between Heimdall’s and put his head near the other man’s, almost forehead to forehead, but  
not quite, and his hand rested around him in a lazy manner. He didn't ask if Heimdall was comfortable because this was Thor and Thor would take it all for himself before thinking twice and Heimdall loved him even more for that, for that selfishness, ever so royal. He gave him a short squeeze before they both settled in comfortable positions. Thor's soft laugh when he was held so tightly was a delight. He only looked at Heimdall once before he closed his eyes and fell asleep almost too fast.  
The had prince asked, the prince had received. The prince was satisfied, so all was at peace. That was what Heimdall had thought back then.  
  
That first night when he had first tasted Thor seemed like an eternity away, completely fractured from something that had actually happened. It seemed like another time in another world. It seemed like moments ago.  
Next to him, in the Commander’s chair, the Thor from now was still in deep drunken slumber. Heimdall realized, with a pang of sadness, that he could still spend his time watching Thor sleep,  
even now. He’d done so that first night too, until sleep finally caught up with him too. But for half the night he watched Thor’s sleeping face even after the fire had died out and he could only guess the contours of his lips.  
Those lips were less full now, his face a map of lines that traced Thor’s history more honestly than any stories. But his eyes...his _eye_ was still the same and, thankfully, now it was closed, for sometimes they… _it_ was unbearable to look into.  
 _Which one of us had been the worst one of us back then?_ Heimdall wondered. _Was it me for laying myself at your feet without even asking if it would matter or was it you for offering yourself to me_  
 _without making any promises?_  
Lightly, ever so lightly, Heimdall brushed his fingers through Thor’s short hair, over the back of his head, and lingered on his jawline. If he would bend down and just brush his lips against Thor’s none would be any wiser. But if he did, he knew he would start to spiral down and what awaited for him at the bottom was not going to be pleasant. He’d took worse chances.  
Or maybe not worse enough.  
He kissed the top of his head instead, with the same gentleness of a father, with the same lingering movements of a lover.  
And then he turned around and walked out of the command deck as fast as he could. If he would look back, he would go back and if he would go back, he would hit the bottom.  
  
Loki was not who he expected to see on the ship’s corridors at that hour. Not because he was not always sneaking around at the cover of darkness, or in this case, dimmed lights, but because he seemed to have been waiting to bump into Heimdall, as if stirred awake by that chase kiss from moments before.   
He was barefoot, which was not a state he’d ever seen him in. He also wore one of Thor’s tunics. His hair was not fixed at all, no glamour to hide it, he was as Heimdall had seen him earlier, while he was asleep. The hair, dark as the Cosmos, was loose over his shoulders in waves of black.  
Heimdall had a strange sensation that Loki had intended to be seen like this by him. Intention on Loki’s part meant he was up to something, so Heimdall stayed sharp.  
“Heimdall.”  
“Loki.”  
“Why are you up so late?”  
“I could ask the same of you.”  
“I am going to take Thor to his bed.”  
“He is-”  
“I know where he is, Heimdall. I might not have trillions of eyes, but I know where Thor is, always. “ He cut through Heimdall’s words. His eyes were sharp, even if the rest of him was only just roused from sleep. He seemed a little frantic, afraid even, to some degree.  
Due to some weird motion Heimdall had not realized they were even doing until they already were, the two of them were slowly walking around each other, in a dance of what could have only been akin to intimidation. Just that it was Loki who was trying to do the intimidation, instead of the other way around.  
“Put your tongue to use as you do and speak if you have something to say.” Heimdall offered. He checked quickly if Thor was still asleep in his seat.  
“He still sleeps the sleep of the drunk and tired, let him be.” Loki immediately spat out. His voice was low but the sound of malice was fraying at the edges. “I will go and rouse him and take him to bed, where he will sleep next to me until morning, when he will wake up feeling maybe a bit sick, and I will use my magic to make him feel better.” Heimdall frowned but said nothing. “I see you seeing us, Heimdall, and I know why you can barely stop watching.”  
  
Heimdall narrowed his eyes but there was no point in moving it all in another direction, not with Loki at least.  
He knew. _Of course he knew._  
“I know, don’t think I don’t. About you and him. About how it was back then. “  
“And I know of you and him. What of it?” Heimdall offered, in the best even tone he could.  
The lack of lights in the corridor made Loki’s cheeks seem more hollow and his hair did not shimmer even when touched by the emergency lights that were lit up across the corridor’s walls. It was a mass of black that almost seemed alive, twisting in tune with the shadows. For a moment, it was like Heimdall was looking at Hela and it made him take just half a step back.   
But Hela wanted kingdoms. Loki, Heimdall realized with a degree of pain, only wanted to keep him away from Thor. Loki was showing Heimdall weakness, by appearing to him as he was, out of Thor’s bed, while also showing him his strength.  
What a strange change from his usual cunning, back stabbing ways. Heimdall almost felt sorry for him, because Loki seemed to genuinely believe he was a threat. He bit his tongue so as not to tell Loki just how deeply Thor loved him and how much he was willing to suffer for him, time and time again. He bit his tongue so as not to scold him for not having seen that already.   
“You let him be all this time. Continue to do so.” Loki instructed.  
“I am.”  
“I feel like that is not the case. Do not touch him ever again.”  
“Did you spit your magic all over Thor to be so attuned to what happens to him? Weak of you, Loki, to try to control the outcome of this madness you two share by such means. But then again, you were never above it.”  
“I will do what I please to keep what is mine.”  
“Thor is Asgard’s, not yours. And first and foremost, he belongs to himself.”  
“Is that what you tell yourself to make you sleep better at night after you realized he was never _**yours**_?” Loki spat out. Low blow, but if Loki realized it, he didn't show it. His voice was more even than Heimdall gave him credit for, considering.  
“I’ve no business with Thor anymore, not beyond being his eyes, as I have always been.”  
“Then let him be.”  
“I am.” Heimdall said, and the next words came out of his mouth like a tidal wave, and he was unable to stop the flood, as he leaned into Loki’s personal space and half whispered: “But it does  
not erase the fact that I was his first.”  
  
Loki’s eyes flared bright green and lit up so brightly they were almost fluorescent. He opened his mouth, baring his teeth in a movement similar to a snarl. The shadows of the corridor shifted, and  
Heimdall braced himself for the fight.   
But, just as fast as it came, just as fast the threat subsided, leaving room to nothing but silence. Loki’s eyes were back to their usual color, his mouth recovering from the snarl almost too fast for comfort. The effort it took for Loki to pull back was obvious – his breathing was erratic and his jaw was so clenched Heimdall could swear he’d heard his teeth grind. Loki instead just stepped closer to Heimdall, his face becoming more composed with each inch he closed between them:  
“If it means I have to hurl this space bucket into the nearest exploding supernova, rest assured and remember: I will be Thor’s last.”  
He turned on his heels and walked away across the dark corridor, towards the command deck.  
Heimdall had kept his stare, but he dropped it as soon as Loki disappeared from sight. He looked back towards the empty corridor, glancing with renowned interest whatever shadows and specks of magic Loki had left behind.  
He let out a heavy sigh.  
  
He had never seen Loki so weak before. He was more powerful than ever but his heart had somehow cracked the glass shell it had been enclosed in; Heimdall did not need to pierce through his chest to know that. He felt sad, not because Thor was not his anymore -he had never been- but because he understood Loki, and he did not want to. He wanted to hate him, it was easier.  
But he could not truly feel that way towards him anymore, because the fool, in his darkness, in his cowardice and despair, truly loved Thor.


	4. Chapter 4

For someone who had witnessed trillions of lives, memories should not be easy to pull back from the caskets they’d been buried in.  
But if Heimdall focused just a bit, he could feel the scents of the forest meadows he'd crossed, remember the certain way a fire crackled in one particular night, call back visions of gold hair that seemed like amber in the fire light.  
Alone in the solitary cell on the ship, the whirlwind of his mind _remembered._

* * *

  
The palace had quieted down after it had seemed it never would. The return of Thor from the great hunt of a giant that had disrupted Nillfheim had been hailed with thunderous cheers and an ocean of  
mead.  
He’d been relentless, they’d said, glorious, thunderous. All sorts of epithets they called him, well into the night, as he’d thrown the head of the slayed giant at his father’s feet and he was lauded. The Great Hall echoed with cheer. Thor reveled in it, oh how he reveled, proud and drunk, and his eyes searched for Heimdall’s and called for him until Heimdall gave him his eyes and Thor found himself on the Bifrost.  
He was there, but also in the Great Hall, and the echoes of music and talk shimmered somewhere beyond his subconscious.  
“I have returned, Heimdall.”  
“I know.”  
“Come to me tonight.”  
“You are celebrated, my Prince.”  
“It’s not the kind of celebration I want to end the night with.” Thor demanded. He was shaking with anticipation. The need, the lust, was written all across his face.  
“Only if you let your hair down.” Heimdall grinned and Thor returned it. Heimdall had gotten into the way of making small demands of him and Thor enjoyed jesting he would not deliver, but did every time. He liked the praise, he liked to hear Heimdall whisper words in his ear, that he was beautiful and strong. He liked to feel Heimdall's dark hands roam across his body and through his hair as if he worshiped every single part of him.  
Thor was spoiled and thoroughly selfish, and Heimdall loved him more and more. They had barely weeks together before Thor had to go to Nilfheim, most of them spent sparring, attending councils and visiting other parts of the Nine Realms.   
Upon each return, Thor called for him and Heimdall fell at his feet as soon as he was told to, and eventually it was Thor himself who did it. With a semiconscious grin on his face, to hide his anxiousness, Thor had sat Heimdall in a great golden chair in his room and stayed between his legs until Heimdall was so overcome with Thor’s mouth, that, for one blissful moment, his eyes saw nothing else in the Cosmos but molten gold.  
Now Thor was back and he demanded the real thing. Thor looked up at Heimdall, who had not moved from his post and, with one swift movement, he pulled at the string holding his hair in a bun and it cascaded down in waves.  
“My hair is down. I’m waiting.” He said, and wished himself away and away he was, back in the Great Hall, among his warriors, his hair still tied up.   
  
It had seemed to never stop, the noise, and it was only when the earliest of the morning birds had started to sing that Heimdall walked inside Thor’s room. He placed his hand on the door, making it so he would be the only one able to open it and placed his great helmet on the nearest table. Thor had been waiting by the window, with the curtains fluttering in the summer breeze. His hair was down and he was completely naked.  
It was he who undressed Heimdall of his armor, piece by piece he put them on the ground and when they were all done for, he leaned in to his lips and Heimdall took him like he knew Thor wanted to be taken.  
And minutes later, there he was, Thor’s face shining with effort in the fading moonlight, and Heimdall inside him, slow, as slow as he could, his cock pulsating with every thrust inside the body he desired the most. Thor had winced in pain, regardless of how much time Heimdall had spent preparing him, but he’d had worse pains in his life and he never asked him to stop. Heimdall didn’t know if he could stop at that point anymore because of how warm it was inside him, how tight, how wonderful. He leaned in one arm and stood above Thor and Thor opened his eyes and took him in.  
“Tell me if you don't want me to-”  
“No!” Thor interjected “Never even mention it again. Don’t stop. Do what you must and I will follow.”  
Heimdall caressed his cheek and put his mouth over Thor’s just as he moved his hips deeper inside him, as deep as he could and Thor cried out into his mouth and it was bliss. He would never admit it, but an ounce of pain to a great deal of pleasure was exactly what he wanted to give Thor. Make him wince, just a little, subdue him, just a bit. Be not Thor’s Heimdall but for a moment, _for Thor to be Heimdall’s._  
He let Thor’s body accommodate him though, and only started to move after he felt him relax and the more he moved, the smoother the movement became and more moans were escaping Thor’s mouth than ever before. He was loud, and he grunted every time Heimdall’s hands happened to touch his neglected cock. There was a pool of precome gathering in his navel, dripping down his hips.  
  
Thor was a mess when he surrendered to his lust, which he did voluntarily and without any qualms, foregoing any acts of innocence and inexperience; when his mouth was on Heimdall’s length, he  
took it all in, gags and all, and if his mouth was too full when he came, he let it drip down his lips, he let it splatter his face and get in his hair and he stood there naked, knees red from pressing on the marble floors or rubbing on the furs or carpets, and he wiped his face off with the back of his hand and crawled right back to Heimdall for more. He had no idea what those acts did to Heimdall, only because they came from him and no one else.  
Only because it was Thor and not someone else.   
To mark a beautiful thing was in itself a thing of beauty and for the beauty to not protest, it was already a blessing and Heimdall felt himself as being blessed. The Prince knelt for him, the Prince swallowed his seed and allowed Heimdall to be inside him in any way he wanted to be. He felt pride at that, at being the only one who got to see this, the first one to teach Thor, the first one to hold him like he did, the first one to be inside him.  
He took mercy on Thor’s cock, eventually, and used the precome as lubricant, to smooth out the slow strokes he started on it. Thor was frowning, panting in pleasure, arching his hips upwards one  
moment, then pushing his ass into Heimdall the next, unable to choose to which pleasure to surrender. He came under his hand without a warning, splattering come all over the both of them and the sheets. His spasms were so powerful they clenched Heimdall’s cock inside him violently, making him come as well, both hands on Thor’s hips, digging into them as he slammed into his prince a few final times.   
  
Thor was still moaning, in spite of having come just seconds before, his body sensitive all over, and the tips of his fingers released static all across the sheets. The crackle filled the silence between their ragged breaths and it smelled like rain, for just a few moments.   
Heimdall closed his eyes, breathing hard a few times, frantic almost, unclenching his fingers from around Thor’s waist and buttocks. When he finally came back to himself, he slid out of him and Thor relaxed completely, his legs falling one onto the other, on the side. Heimdall’s seed was dripping out of him, running down his ass cheek, onto his thigh and down on the sheets. He didn’t seem to care, he was spent.  
Heimdall pressed both hands on his face and then lowered down to kiss Thor’s shoulder, before he moved away on the edge of the bed. He wiped himself with one of the washing cloths next to the water basin, before starting to move away.  
“Where are you going, Heimdall?”  
“I must return to the Bifrost.”  
“No, you mustn’t.” Thor said, leaning in one elbow, looking at Heimdall’s naked form through the darkness. “You cannot leave, not now, not on my first night! I am your prince, and I command you to stay.”  
Heimdall looked out the window, his eyes on the Bifrost, and then beyond it. All was still. Nothing would happen for a very long time yet. He returned to the bed, laying on his side, face to face with  
Thor.  
“Of course, if you want to leave, I will not make you stay...” Thor offered, more kindly.  
“No, of course not. I – I did not expect you would want me to stay.”  
“I do, always.” Thor said, a hand of Heimdall’s cheek “I know such relationships sometimes happen purely for the body and both men go their way after it is consumed, but there are also those who lay side by side as we are now, until the sun comes up, and return to each other again at night. That is how I want it. I want you to stay.”  
“Then I am here.”  
“You are, and this has been magnificent.”  
“After a while, the memory of this first time will pale in comparison to all the others things I'll show you.”  
Thor laughed and crawled on top of Heimdall.  
“I cannot wait!” He laughed and laughed into Heimdall's neck, peppering lazy kisses over his dark skin.   
  
Thor fell asleep in his arms shortly after, warm and content, breath even and peaceful.  
Heimdall kept watch on the Bifrost in a half awake state and when Thor woke up, in the golden light of a late morning, he got on top of Heimdall and rode him like he did one of his stallions. He was still half a asleep, with dreams still caught in between his eyelashes but he was hot and hard for him, lips red and cock dripping. He came messily over the both of them again, and he didn’t care - he asked for his pleasure later that afternoon and then again that night.  
When Heimdall returned to his duty, Thor helped him put his armor on and he took it off again moments later as his mouth started to roam Heimdall’s body as if it was only meeting it for the first time. And Heimdall fisted his hair in his hand and took him from behind right there, his pretty face pressed onto the door, and their seed dripped onto the marble when they were done and spent.  
  
And so it went, for a hundred years, and everyone knew and people talked. Odin knew and he did not talk but in his silence he approved, for Heimdall had his counsel and many things to teach. The Queen herself gave him a gentle tap on the arm one day and he knew she knew and that she was happy Thor had chosen him.  
  
For Thor and Heimdall's part, they kept to themselves and showed each other what they had to show behind closed doors and Heimdall was congratulated on the honor of bedding the Prince and he cared none for the honor because he loved him from one end of the Nine Realms to the other.  
He kissed Thor in meadows, on the Bifrost, through all the halls in the palace. He tried not to chase him and let Thor come to him, not because he did not want to chase him but because he knew how the story would end and he wanted to spare himself some of the pain that would come with it.   
He taught him history, myth and hunting and they fought with swords and spears, daggers and bare hands and he was there when Thor received Mjolnir for he was the one who bedded him later that night, the mighty hammer on a chair, overseeing them both.  
As his unofficial mentor, Heimdall had access to Thor at all times and oh, did he take advantage of it. He had Thor bent over chairs and tables, in the moonlight and at dusk, in rivers and forests and once, even on the cold floor of the Bifrost. Thor was insatiable, for glory and for sex, and each time he was away for more than a few days, he came back hungry for him and Heimdall let him have his fill.  
  
And then Thor was away more often than not, and he did not call for Heimdall as often. Their talks and spars lasted longer, but their touches were few and far in between. Loki's face appeared side by  
side with Thor's more often than not, and Thor was consumed by it.  
Within a century, he realized his place was not by Thor’s side anymore and he knew he had to take his leave and make it so as if it never even happened at all. He opened his mouth more than once, to ask Thor, at least hear it from his mouth that that had been it, but he swallowed his words and they were bitter every time. Heimdall gathered his love in his hands and it dripped through his fingers like sand. So he buried it in a chest somewhere in the back of his mind, and placed it in the rooms of his heart he never visited.  
And he stood tall with his sword on the Bifrost, and watched other lives, more sorrowful than his own, who had never even touched a god, much less held one in their arms.

* * *

  
Thor woke up, as Loki had predicted, with a headache. The mead made from the fruits grown in the ship’s greenhouse was not the best quality. Whereas with Asgardian mead you woke up feeling almost rejuvenated, it was not the case with this one.  
Heimdall saw Thor wake up then turn on his side, a hand on his face, as if he would expect the gesture to cure his pains somehow.  
Loki entered the room, walking almost soundlessly towards the bed. The glamour dropped almost instantly and Heimdall saw Loki looking not much different than he did the night before, same leather pants and tunic, just that he was wearing boots this time and looked more well rested. His hair was pulled out of his face in a bun, perched low on the back of his head. Under it, the rest of his hair tumbled in a cascade of darkness.  
It was strange, but he almost resembled Frigga in manner and gesture, the way he walked towards the bed, hands one on top of the other, tilting his head to check if Thor was yet awake. Even in the way he sat down on the edge of the bed and put his hand on Thor’s shoulder he seemed like the mother who had not been his mother.  
“I know you are awake, you drunken oaf. Open your eye.” Loki said, patiently, but Thor only grunted and tried to lazily shake Loki’s hand off him “I can make the headache go away, you know. You can’t present yourself like this to the people.”  
“I always could have before.”  
“Yes, but this is _after_.” Loki said, matter of factly. He took the destruction of their people as a fact that was, and because _it was_ and _it had happened_ , there was no taking it back and it needed to be  
pushed into a direction. Any direction. He would not think of a home he lost, he would not think of a mother he lost. Perhaps in a few decades, but not now.  
Those were Loki’s thoughts, of which Heimdall knew nothing of, as he watched Thor’s awakening unfold. What Heimdall knew however, was that Loki was now Thor's pillar and, perhaps, the only reason their King had not wallowed in complete misery.  
  
Thor got up and rubbed under his eye patch, but Loki slapped his hand away. He whispered a word or two and the eye patch fell into his hand. Thor’s empty eye socket glared back at him. It was an ugly thing; the flesh had been so charred by Hela’s magic not even Loki managed to heal it into submission. It had stayed a patch of dark flesh under the eye patch, healed, but beyond even the mildest recovery.  
Thor looked away, turning his face from Loki, who in turn, ignored him completely and turned around with him, until he took a hold of Thor’s chin and turned his face back to him.  
“There is nothing you can do to it.” Thor said.  
“I know. But it doesn’t mean I do not want to look you in the face anymore.” Loki said, voice scolding. But his eyes were gentle, his lips were mellow as they spoke. He loved him regardless, Heimdall thought, missing eye or not, King of Asgard or not. It was painful for Heimdall to admit he saw it, crystal clear.  
“It’s a sore to see.”  
“You generally are, so a piece a bit more sore than the rest won’t hurt me any more than your ugly face usually does.”  
Thor snorted and shoved Loki lightly, before Loki’s hands were on his face and the tips of his fingers became ice cold. He felt the magic course through him, gently, like a slow summer stream, erasing his headache inch by inch until it was no more. He looked refreshed and very much awake.  
“Thank you.”  
“You should, I developed this spell alone when I was younger and never intended to help anyone with it but myself.”  
“I’ve never even seen you drunk.”  
“You’ve never seen me taking bottles from the cellars and drinking by myself, is what you haven’t.”  
  
Thor frowned and there was a question, which Loki cut through before Thor even opened his mouth “Let’s not talk of things passed, we agreed.”  
“ _You_ agreed. You agreed never to talk of your sadness from back then. Of the things you've done and why. Our past shapes us, Loki.”  
“And the present changes our shape, Thor. Nothing is permanent, everything dissipates sooner or later. Do you really want to have this discussion at this early hour?”  
Thor raised his arms in surrender and fell back on the bed. Loki watched him with the tired indulgence of the patient parent. He sighed and leaned on the bed, resting in his elbows, near Thor.  
“You must go out and see them, and speak to them and tell them things that will soothe them.”  
“I shan’t. I am tired. I wish to sleep and eat and not think for a while.”  
“You _**will** _go outside that door,” Loki said, his tone harsher than before, pointing towards the metal door “and you will sit in the Commander’s chair and that’s what you will do, Thor: _**command**_!”  
Thor sat up sharply, staring at Loki with both his dark socket as well as with his bright eye and Loki quickly scurried away back to the edge of the bed, back stiff, shoulders straight, like an animal taken by surprise by a much larger predator. For a split second, there was the smell of rain in the air, a wet static that announced thunder. The shadows around the room darkened and stretched out, like elastic bands ready to snap.   
It all went away as soon as it came. The fight died out of both of them, though Loki's subsided slower than Thor's.   
  
Thor looked away and down to the floor, shut his eyes for a moment, then touched his missing one, his fingers caressing the frayed edges of his socket. It was still sensitive to touch. He turned to Loki and opened his arms, and Loki only needed a second to cross the distance and fill them.  
Heimdall almost turned away from them, but, just like many times before, he couldn’t. He watched with pain in his heart how Loki buried his face in the crook of Thor’s neck and how well he fitted in it. How he welcomed the act of the embrace, a gesture he had so often been deprived of as a child.  
“I did not mean to frighten you.” Thor said with a gentle voice that aimed to offer comfort.   
“I did not mean to be afraid.”  
“Were you?”  
“Not really, I am just saying it to make you feel better.”  
The laugh that came out from between Thor's lips was soft, and so was their kiss. Thor pushed Loki on the bed and kissed his face all over and Loki, so unlike himself, allowed Thor to do what he pleased with him, without a comment.  
  
Heimdall watched Loki's slender, marble-white fingers hold Thor's face and he saw his thumbs caress it. Loki's face was kind and soft and he touched the edges of Thor's empty eye socket softly. _He loves him, he loves him_. Loki kissed his temple and Heimdall witnessed the look on Thor's face in that moment with a knot that twisted painfully in his stomach: he closed his eyes and exhaled gently, as if he was given a mercy, as if he was released of all his sorrows, as if Loki was giving him shelter.   
Hard to believe someone like Loki could ever be capable of giving another person sanctuary and comfort.  
The kiss that followed was mellow. Thor broke it first, lips on Loki's cheek, his temple, back to his mouth. Their hands touched without purpose - they just wanted to feel each other's presence, just to  
make sure it's real, just bid Time for a moment longer together.  
  
Heimdall looked away.

* * *

  
The next time Heimdall met Loki in what they had called their temporary Great Hall, the cargo deck that had been transformed into a communal living space, Loki was on his toes, watching him under dark eyelashes, ready to lash at him.  
But Heimdall didn’t.  
And he also did not ignore Loki, but instead began to treat him with the same reverence he would have offered any other King’s right hand. Just like he did with his love for Thor centuries before, he pretended that what had happened, never happened, and let their fates follow their course undisturbed.  
He had thought long and hard in that solitary isolation cell, for an entire night, and replayed in his memory all that he had seen that Thor and Loki had shared since their first kiss. He set aside his biased views, he set aside what he felt when he saw their mouths lock, or their bodies push and shove at each other until they became one.  
He heard Thor’s words, intertwined with Loki’s:  
  
 _“If this is a lie, **I will** kill you! I swear it by the Norns, I will kill you if these words of love you speak are made of ice, ready to shatter at the slightest tremor!”_  
 _“Then just do it, it doesn't even matter if it means you will just continue to look at me in doubt!”_  
  
 _“I have always waited for you to come back. I will **always** take you back home, Loki, this is your home, here, where my heart is. Say something.”_  
 _“I have nothing to say.”_  
 _“What does that mean?”_  
 _“Well...it’s not a bad thing. I suppose.”_  
 _"You suppose?"_  
 _"Just come here Thor, I am cold and this bed is large enough for the both of us."_  
  
 _“The weight of these burdens bends me at the waist, Loki. But I cannot let them see I am weary as well, for they will surely fall.”_  
 _“Then let me carry you unseen, Thor.”_  
  
Heimdall’s golden eyes pierced through the darkness of the isolation cell and he slowly pulled himself up. He was a mighty warrior and his eyes were eyes like no one else’s. He was skilled and he was  
wise, and he was learning to become wiser more.  
For all his gifts, and all his love, he was not, nor had ever been, the shadow behind a great prince, or a great King. He was always at the forefront, sword in his hand, ready to battle, always the first to see the danger, to stand guard, to have his thunderous voice shake millions.  
Thor held Loki, and Thor’s touch had rendered him gentle and patient. Loki held Thor up, as strong as the branches of Yggdrasil, and as invisible as the wind.  
  
Heimdall did not like it, but in his wisdom, he saw the things that were not visible at the first sight.  
Loki was volatile, and it was, perhaps, just a matter of time before his very nature tempted him to go ahead and do what he’d always done. But at the same time, not once since Odin had brought Loki into Asgard, had Heimdall seen him like he was now. Heimdall also realized, he had never really even watched Loki, his own golden eyes always chasing Thor’s golden curls, mesmerized by his life, by his radiance. He could not go back in time and undo the things he had not done but he had the choice now to do better.  
He was not a lover - he'd been, once. But at his very core, Heimdall was the eyes of the Cosmos and with that gift also came a wisdom, which trumped love and regret. And in his wisdom, he knew that all their lives were tinged with chaos and within that chaos, there was also balance.  
  
He walked out of the cell, away from the prisons, towards the main decks, each step bringing him closer to resolution.  
Thor would lead and Thor would bring them home. And, for what it was worth, Loki would hold the weight of Thor’s throne on his shoulders. And no one would thank him for it, for they will probably never know.   
But Thor’s arms would hold him and Loki’s greed, his darkness, would be vomited out, the remnants of his hate too, and Heimdall truly believed now that, in a way, Loki would too, become golden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.   
> If you enjoyed the fic, please do leave a comment, it would be greatly appreciated,


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